Dreams of Wolves
by Ch6lsea
Summary: It's been six years and Gendry doesn't want to remember. But how do you ignore a direwolf? Possible progression into chapters depending on feedback.


There were nights when Gendry did not sleep. Those nights were the easiest. Those nights did not remind him. They were free of his nightmares and of his regrets. It had been six years. Six years today he had been knighted. Six years today he had been completely alone.

Gendry looked towards the sky. He desperately wanted the sun to rise so he could begin his work. He had found out quickly that people did not appreciate the songs of his hammer late into the night. So he sat, and waited. The air was cold, but it no longer bothered his southern skin and he knew it was far colder in the north. The real north. Her North. He shut his eyes against the sudden wind, pushing back his train of thought. No. He did not need or want this right now.

That's why he never slept. The Bull would be damned if he let these nightmares slip into his waken life. He wasn't sure what it was that still bothered him. The way he felt; as if he had somehow failed her. There had been no word of a family reunion. Not that there were many Starks left.

And the news of her brother and mother. That had upset him the most; it had shaken him to the very core.

If only we had been faster. If we had gotten her to them... then she-

Would be dead.

Gendry didn't know whether that comforted him or not. Six years, and he had no idea if she yet lived. His friend. His sister. He had been angry at himself that night at the brothel. He had yelled at Arya and told her he didn't care. He was even angrier when he returned to find that old man sitting disgustingly close to her and the way she had reacted had sent him over the edge. You're not my brother.

"That's right. I'm too bloody lowborn to be kin to m'lady high." He hadn't understood fully why it hurt so much.

He did now. And his belatedness was the worst part. The part that made him feel ill at times. The part that stopped his work and forced him to think about other things. Another wind crept up and he pulled his cloak closer together, placing his hand on the sword resting at his thigh. He smiled. It was a fine weapon he had crafted, well balanced and exquisitely designed. People had found it a shock that Gendry had not named it something to go with his Bull identity.

"Don't you think it's weird that a bull has a fang?" Leah had asked him.

"What should I call it then? Hoof? Snout? There's not much t' go off of with a Bull."

She thought a moment, "You could call it horn or...I s'pose you have a point. It's just that fang makes me think of a wolf, s'all."

Gendry had noticed that she sat herself as snug beside him as she could. He remembered how hard it was to keep his stomach from lurching. She was only doing it because he was a knight now. He had known that now.

"There's nothing wrong with wolves."

"But they're savage beasts, no reasoning with those ones. A bull is stubborn, but at least it has a use like pulling plows and wagons. All wolves do is kill and destroy."

Gendry looked at his new blade as Leah rambled on, only hearing half of what she said. It was a beautiful steel sword, double edged and wolf's head had been placed at the top of the hilt. One he had carved himself.

"You mean survive."

Leah paused "I'm sorry what?"

Gendry had taken a deep breath, he hated explaining things. It was hard. He wanted it to be simple.

"You mean survive, that's why they kill. So they can eat and survive and live and rear their pups. If you ask me, that's as good a reason as any to shed blood. For your pack; for your family."

"Aye, but a wolf is the sigil of the Starks and you're no Stark, Gendry of the Hollow Hill," she said.

"A direwolf is their sigil. This is a wolf." he remembered pointing to the carved head on the hilt.

"Same thing. No wonder that Lord Stark had his head chopped off. They claim to be a noble house, but with a sigil like that, no wonder they're all dead or missing." Leah reached to touch the wolf head. "How is a wolf noble, they're-"

Her breath caught when Gendry had grabbed her hand and held it firmly, his face inches from hers.

"Its name is fang." He had known her hand hurt in his grip. But her words had angered him. She smiled weakly and nodded. Gendry had almost felt bad.

Now that he thought about it, he probably should have felt bad. He was a knight now after all, six years in the making. He'd killed plenty of men, seen enough blood. But he knew what Leah wanted and he'd bedded enough women, for no apparent reason. He was tired of it.

A sharp cracking sound pulled him from his thoughts. Gendry stood up, his hand still on Fang, eyes searching the darkness of the tree line.

"Who's there?"

No answer. He heard the cracking sound again and began to slowly walk towards it, cautiously watching the shadows in the trees. He stopped right on the edge of the wood squinting to see deeper into the darkness, his hand still resting on Fang's hilt.

He waited for what seemed like ages but no sound other than silence met him. Gendry sighed heavily and smiled at himself. Of course it's nothing. He turned to walk back to his bench outside of the forge and felt hands wrap around his mouth and an arm take hold of his neck dragging him into the forest. Gendry planted his feet firmly on the ground and tried with all of his might to resist, but the hands had been quick and he was pulled off balance effortlessly. He watched as the forge disappeared from his sight, enveloped in the leaves of the trees that passed above him. There were three of them at the very least. He could tell by the way they carried him as he struggled. One held onto his neck and covered his mouth while the other two had his legs. They were telling him to stop struggling to be quiet, but he was too stubborn to care. He kicked and writhed and did so even harder when he felt one of them pull Fang from it's scabbard.

No! he thought. No, not that! Gendry bucked hard and was awarded with a free leg.

"Gods this one is stubborn. Tryp take care of him will ya!" He felt the man at his head squeeze his arm around his neck harder. Gendry could barely breathe but he kept fighting. A rage boiling up inside. He writhed and kicked but the more he did the harder the man squeezed his neck. He felt the them let his legs go and tried hard to hold his own weight on his feet as the air to his lungs was cut off. Gendry clawed at the bare arm but got no relief. His vision began to blur as he saw one of the other men walk up in front of him pulling their arm back to hit him. He felt the impact in his stomach and nearly blacked out then and their for lack of oxygen and the pain.

"Hit him again!" he heard someone say. With what little strength he had left in him Gendry used the height of the man holding him to his advantage pushing off of the man in front of him, kicking him square in the chest before he could hit him once more. This caused the big man to stumble backwards given Gendry enough room to elbow him hard in the stomach which was surprisingly soft for how hard the arm had been. The man released him and Gendry gasped for air only to find his efforts rewarded with a very hard object hitting him in the back of the head causing him to fall to his knees in pain. Tryp groaned and Gendry heard someone shuffling behind him. Surely the person had hit him with a tree by the way his head felt.

"I didn't say let 'em go you big oaf! Grab 'em!" he heard the first man, the leader of the, yell from behind him.

"Maybe we should've picked someone smaller?" a third voice said.

"Shut up!,They die all the same and this one's got a nice steel sword we can sell later. Check him for other goods." He felt hands fumbling around his cloak and then someone push his face into the ground.

"Tie him up first you idiots, do you want to get hit again" he could hear the man, Tryp, grumble in response.

Gendry lay there, his head throbbed and he could feel something warm running down the side of his face. Blood. He wanted to fight but his limbs didn't understand his commands. He slowly closed his eyes to push back the waves of dizziness coming over him.

Bandits. Nothing but simple bandits. The Bull was angry and trapped.

"Find anything?"

"No he don't got nothing on him but that sword and this nice pin holding his cloak."

It was a gift Harwin had given him. Gendry didn't want to part with it and he tried to lift his head to protest but it was no use.

"What a waste, Tryp. Kill 'em, we can't have 'em going back to that inn and rattin' on us"

Rats. Gendry remembered the rats and the screams. No gods no. He couldn't hold those memories back now. He felt rough hands pull him to his knees and there was something cold at his neck. A knife. And then there were vision - a fat boy who liked cheese too much. A man who couldn't die. Howling, singing, death. So much death. A crabapple. Rivers, maps and banners. Screams. Flashes of laughter. Denial. Growling. A boy who was a girl. It struck him as odd that he felt happy when he remembered her face. He had tried to forget it long ago, so that his nightmares weren't so bad. Fangs. Growling.

"What's that?" The man who held the knife to his throat asked the others.

"What's what?"

Growling. Gendry was growling. His executioner trembled, dropping the knife from his throat.

"By the gods..." and then it was loud. The screaming and the crunching sounds. Gendry tried to focus his vision, but all he could see were blurs of fur and claws and red. And then it was quiet.

Gendry held himself up as well as he could, a sense of dread washing over him. A wolf - an incredibly large wolf stood before him, its fur stained with blood. The blood of the men who had meant to kill him. A direwolf. He tried to stand, but the wave of nausea that came over him forced him back to his knees. He didn't know what to do. Try to run? Cry out for help? Something in its eyes kept him from doing either.

It watched him. It didn't stare at him. It watched him.

There was a familiarity about it; the way it regarded him. Gendry made a move to reach out to it, but his arm was heavier than it should've been and the action toppled him forward into the dirt once more. He tried to keep his eyes on the direwolf, but it was becoming increasingly harder to keep them open with each passing second. He rolled himself over and waited. Waiting for what? For a similar fate to that of his kidnappers? Why hadn't it attacked him too? He felt hot air on his face and opened his eyes to find the wolf's head hovering over his, its eyes were beautiful.

The wolf knelt it's head beside Gendry's and waited. As if understanding what it meant, Gendry placed his arm around its neck and brought his other one up to wrap around the other side. He held on as the wolf dragged him to a tree, so that he might use it to prop himself up. He had just situated himself, albeit not easily, when he noticed the wolf was standing in front of him with his sword in its mouth. He smiled.

"You brought me Fang."

The direwolf placed the sword on his lap and waited. Gendry ran his hand along the cold steel thanking the gods and he found himself thanking the old ones not the new. Arry's gods. He looked back up the wolf once more. Its eyes were beautiful. And they were familiar.

"Arry" he breathed. The wolf only watched him. Gendry felt stupid. Why would such a beast remind him of her, of that little girl he had wanted to protect. The girl he had failed to protect.

The bull didn't notice the tears running down his face. He didn't notice the way his voice had broken when he'd whispered the name. All he could feel was an unsettling sense of vulnerability. He felt beaten. Grasping the blade of the sword hard he welcomed the sensation of the edges cutting into his palm. Pain was hard; wounds were simple. He liked simple things. He felt the nose of the wolf touch his face and broke down when it nuzzled his neck. The tears were hard. Harder than anything else.

This was ridiculous he thought. A direwolf was comforting him. Or was he comforting it? He couldn't tell. It seemed as lonely as he did, though much deadlier with its blood stained fur. He had still throbbed. He hadn't noticed the bodies of the men lying around them; their bodies torn and distorted, shredded. Gendry found himself wrapping his arms once again around the neck of the direwolf and burying his face there.

And the bull wept. He wept because he didn't know what else to do. He was a knight, he was a bastard. He was a boy. He was a man. He was a smith. He was alone.

So he let sleep take him for the first time in days. And he dreamt. He dreamt of a cat running through foreign streets and of a little girl, tears in her eyes, as she hit him in her acorn dress. It was comforting.

Nobody dreamt of a bull-headed boy that night and tasted blood in her mouth.


End file.
